27 September 2010 1:49 PM

As Ukrainians force Russians to turn their back on their language and change their names, I ask, is this the world's most absurd city?

Imagine some future Brussels edict has finally broken up Britain and handed Devon and Cornwall over to rule by Wales.

Imagine the Royal Navy, much shrunk and renamed the English Navy, being told it has to share Plymouth with a new Welsh fleet; that is, if it is allowed to stay there at all.

Picture the scene as cinemas in Plymouth and Exeter are forced to dub all their films into Welsh, while schools teach anti-English history and children are pressed to learn Welsh.

Street signs are in Welsh. TV is in Welsh. Police cars patrolling Dartmoor have ‘Heddlu’ blazoned on them, banks have become ‘bancs’ and taxis ‘tacsis’.

Meanwhile, Devon and Cornwall are cut off by a frontier from the rest of England, closing down industries with English links, and people are issued with new identity documents with Welsh names.

Utterly mad and unthinkable, you might say. And you would be right. But something very similar has happened in what used to be the Soviet Union, and we are supposed to think it is a good thing – because Russia is officially a bad country, and its former subject nations are therefore automatically good.

Remember how the world’s media reported on Kiev’s ‘Orange Revolution’, which lasted from November 2004 until the following January, with gushing approval?

Remember how you were supposed to think the Orange-clad crowds were a ­benevolent expression of popular opinion?

Remember talk of a ‘New Cold War’, in which wicked Russia was the enemy and ‘we’, the European Union, were going to extend ‘our’ rule deep into the former Soviet lands?

Well, if there was such a war, we are busy losing it because ‘our’ side is misguided and wrong, and because it was always absurd to try to dislodge Russia and the Russians from the great plains of Ukraine and the shores of the Black Sea.

In this part of the world, Russia just is. You might as well try to shift the Himalayas with a bulldozer.

If you thought that political madness in Europe ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, then you should visit present-day Sevastopol, perhaps the most absurd city in the world.

Sevastopol belongs to Ukraine, but hardly anyone here is Ukrainian. Two rival fleets ride at anchor in its majestic harbour. Two rival flags fly from its public buildings.

But now this absurdity may be – slowly – coming to an end. A few months ago, in a crucial event largely ignored in the West, Ukraine’s parliament voted to give the Russian navy a new long lease on its base in Sevastopol.

This was the end of the flirtation between Ukraine and the West. It was greeted by opposition MPs with showers of smoke bombs and eggs (the parliamentary speaker sheltered under an umbrella, presumably a Russian one).

I am not sorry about this. I always thought that destroying the old Communist Evil Empire was quite enough. Why did we then need to rub Russia’s nose in the mud?

They are an old, proud people and most of them didn’t want to be communists.

As for the defeat, anyone could see it coming. It always happens. Britain’s war in the Crimea in 1854 (launched by a drunken, half-asleep Cabinet in what seems to have been a fit of pique) was officially a victory, but all its gains were reversed less than 20 years later.

So the Charge Of The Light Brigade was not just a blunder. It was a pointless one. Imperial Germany seized Ukraine in 1917, and lost it again the following year. Hitler’s Germany repeated the action in 1941, and we all know how that ended.

Now the creation of a fanciful new country called Ukraine, less than 20 years ago, is running into trouble as many of its inhabitants prefer to be Russian.

So why did anyone think it was a good idea to challenge Moscow, on the same repeatedly lost ground? Why are our airwaves and newspapers still full of scare stories about Russia, when the real danger to our independence comes from the EU, and the real threat to our peace and prosperity comes from rather further east?

Why do commentators still peddle tales of a Russian menace, when Russia is a military weakling, its ill-disciplined forces largely equipped with scrap metal?

I think our treatment of Russia since the fall of communism has been almost unbelievably stupid and crude. We complain now about the autocratic rule of Vladimir Putin. But it was our greed and our bullying of the wounded bear that created Putin and his shady, corrupt state.

We insisted on humiliating the Kremlin, when Mikhail Gorbachev had kindly dismantled the communist machine. We sponsored annoying mini-states next door to Russia.

We pushed the anti-Russian Nato alliance (who else was its target?) ever further eastwards as if there were still a Soviet threat. We flooded Russia with spivs and carpet-baggers, and called this disgrace ‘democracy’. Then we wondered why they didn’t love it.

And still it is fashionable to posture in the think-tanks of London and Washington with babble about the need to ‘contain’ Russia, and to side with self-proclaimed people-power ‘revolutions’ in the capitals of Russia’s next-door neighbours.

And if Russia objects we throw up our hands and gabble that a ‘New Cold War’ is in the making.

No, I am not an apologist for Comrade Putin. I like Russia, and wish it had a better government. I think it would have done if we had been more thoughtful after 1991.

But I am against stupidity in foreign policy, and this has been a particularly foolish, short-sighted episode. Let me show you just how foolish it has been by taking you first to the beautiful Crimean seaport of Sevastopol, once the pride of Russia, now absurdly part of a supposedly independent Ukraine.

I went there long ago, under tight escort and carrying a special permit, because this handsome city of white-pillared buildings, shady parks and mighty warships was then a secret, closed city, the most important base of the Soviet Union’s global navy.

Not any more. Things are better, and things are worse. In two decades, Sevastopol has gone from being a sort of Stalinist Sparta, austere and warlike, to a seaside Babylon of pizzerias and nightclubs.

Nearby Balaclava, once one of the world’s most heavily fortified submarine bases – where the boats hid from nuclear attack in a hollowed-out mountain – is now a rather tawdry seaside resort.

Most of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov’s ocean-going navy has long ago been scrapped and turned into washing machines and razor blades. Now, two navies compete for space in its harbour (designed long ago by a British admiral).

One is Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, a shrivelled remnant that can just about sink a Georgian patrol boat (Georgia has a population of 4.7 million) but which has quietly conceded mastery of the Black Sea to Turkey. And this is supposed to be a threat to the mighty and prosperous West?

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to a man I shall call Yuri, an English-speaking officer of the Black Sea Fleet, who mourned: ‘Yes, I remember when we had one of the world’s great navies – but these days we can’t even challenge the Turks for control of the Black Sea, for the first time in 200 years.’

What’s left of the Black Sea Fleet can be seen tied up in Sevastopol’s harbour. The seductive, sleek lines of the beautifully designed ships can’t conceal the fact that these vessels date from the age of the Ford Cortina and the Boeing 707.

Several of the best-surviving ships now form part of the new, pro-Western Ukrainian navy, which shares the port with Russia – thanks to the wholly unexpected creation of an independent state of Ukraine.

This sublimely silly development meant that Russia’s main naval base was suddenly in a foreign country, and its inhabitants became aliens in their own land. It gets more ridiculous. On one side of the harbour, a fortress bears the slogan ‘Glory to the Russian navy!’ A strongpoint a mile away is adorned with a banner proclaiming ‘Glory to the Ukrainian navy!’

Sevastopol’s deputy mayor, Pyotr Kudryashov, knows all about this rivalry. By an accident of history, his son Sergei, 30, and his daughter Anna, 35, are both serving at sea as naval officers – but Anna is in a Russian ship, and Sergei is in a Ukrainian one.

Both wanted to join a navy, and each joined the one that was recruiting when they graduated. In theory, if the New Cold War ever turns hot, they could be firing missiles at each other. Mr Kudryashov, who thinks such a conflict most unlikely, jokes: ‘They get on very well – just like brother and sister.’

If you stroll down the city’s pleasant, sunny Lenin Street, past the elegant 19th Century naval museum, you will meet officers and men of both fleets strolling by in their crisp uniforms.

The Russians, with their shoulder boards and hats the size of large pizzas, still look very Russian. The Ukrainians, in their crisp khakis, look almost exactly like US navy men on shore leave in San Diego. Both, of course, speak Russian to each other.

But, thanks to the New Cold War, the Ukrainian sailors are supposed to speak Ukrainian. For Sevastopol, officially a Ukrainian city, is not very keen on its new status.

Street signs are still in Russian. When I asked the waitress in a cafe to explain an advertising slogan on the wall to me, she shrugged in an entirely Russian way before replying: ‘How should I know? I don’t speak Ukrainian.’

Yet a few months ago the cinemas in the city were obliged by law to dub all their films, even those in Russian, into Ukrainian – which is slightly more unlike Russian than Spanish is unlike Italian. This only stopped because the cinemas were empty. The schools, though most reluctantly teach their classes in Russian, teach Ukrainian history, often with an anti-Russian tinge.

As Yuri says: ‘It is infuriating for us, to have our children taught about how wicked Russia was.’

One particular annoyance is the hero-worship of the Forties Ukrainian partisan Stepan Bandera. Soviet history dismissed him as a ruthless brigand and Nazi collaborator.

Most modern Russians agree. But the last President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, had Bandera proclaimed a national hero, as popular among Russians here as an IRA parade would be in Protestant Antrim.

For this and other reasons, many Russians, especially navy families, send their children instead to a special Russian school – the best in town – built and paid for by Moscow in what looks to me like a direct ­challenge to Ukrainian sovereignty.

There is even a branch of Moscow University here. Moscow maintains a sort of embassy in the heart of Sevastopol, cheekily sited not far from a rather provocative statue of the Russian empress Catherine the Great, also paid for with Moscow roubles.

If all this is not ridiculous enough for you yet, meet retired Rear Admiral Vladimir Solovyov, former intelligence chief of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, now in charge of a welfare organisation for retired sailors.

The admiral, a stocky sea-dog type, says with a chuckle that he knows the East Coast of England well, as seen through a powerful telescope.

He was a real Cold Warrior, but now says: ‘I don’t think modern Russia is strong enough to wield power the way the USSR did in the Cold War.’

These days his enemy is different. When this proud Russian recently tried to obtain a residence permit to retire in Sevastopol, he was told that he had been compulsorily awarded Ukrainian citizenship (and was now ‘Volod­omir’ instead of Vladimir).

Having gone through hoops to become ­Russian again, he now has to leave the country every three months – or face being fined for overstaying his permit.

He gets a Russian pension and lives in a Russian-owned flat. In all important respects, he is in Russia – but technically, he is a foreigner. Like many Russians stuck in a newly foreign land, he warns against attempts to turn him into something else.

‘They made a big mistake. We love many things about Ukraine, the food, the music, the culture, the literature – but when it comes to being told to watch films in Ukrainian, they went too far. And we have a right to see our children grow up thinking, speaking and writing the way Russians do.’

It is true that there are plenty of parts of Ukraine where people do feel and speak Ukrainian – mainly in the west around the city now called Lviv (though in the past 150 years it has also been the Austrian city of Lemberg, the Polish city of Lwow and the Soviet city of Lvov – in this part of the world you can move from country to country just by staying in the same place).

But travel east, as I did, to the old coal-mining region of the Don Basin, and you will find out why so many Ukrainian citizens did not support the 2004 Orange Revolution. I went to the decayed town of Gorlovka. Independence has done little for this place.

Cut off from its Russian hinterland and its markets, it is expiring. All around are dead slag heaps and ruined mines and factories, and tragic landscapes of collapse under a ferocious sun.

Gorlovka’s coal mines and chemical works fed the USSR’s industries. Now they are mostly dead and the town – twinned with Barnsley in the Eighties – is nearly as bereft of its traditional industries as its Yorkshire opposite number.

Sad, empty playgrounds are melancholy evidence of a city condemned to die. There is still a statue of Lenin in the main square but on its flanks are scrawled graffiti – a thing I have never seen before in the former USSR. The image of Lenin was once revered, and later hated, but never trivialised by drawings of Bart Simpson.

The mayor, Ivan Sakharchuk, is proud of his treaty with Barnsley and also insists that there are no ­difficulties with being Ukrainian. I am not so sure. Nobody uses the town’s Ukrainian name of Horlivka.

Many of the street signs are still in Russian. The names of shops are in Russian. The newspapers on sale are in Russian. In the rather smart Cafe Barnsley, the only beer on sale is Russian and the radio is tuned to a Russian station. I suspect thepeople are hoping for – and expecting – a Russian future.

If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down.

Mr Hitchens. You know nothing about Ukrainian history, it's a pity. Please read a little on a country next time before you write about it.
I suggest also that you try to live during some time in some of these villages in the Eastern Ukraine and count yourself how many people proclaim their desire to be part of Russia.
Ukrainians force Russians to turn their back on their language? Then how is it possible that "Many of the street signs are still in Russian. The names of shops are in Russian. The newspapers on sale are in Russian. In the rather smart Cafe Barnsley, the only beer on sale is Russian and the radio is tuned to a Russian station"?
Rather special way of forcing...

Yaffle, please read my comments. If you did, you will find I don't wish for Welsh, or any language "to go the wall. If you read my comments, you will find I quote a body created to protect and promote on these langauges is far from optimistic about the current state of affairs and argues the language it is supporting is pretty much dead. You've dismissed it out of hand, beacuse it does not fit with your views.
Hence Pripyat. What your opinions are on this place, I don't know, but I would take a guess by having read your comments that you would see tourists, police officers, wildlife and standing buildings as "evidence" that the place is a thriving city.

Actually, Yaffle, you're being too generous. I have concluded that, sadly, Michael and Matthew are themselves already dead on the basis that if they don't keep taking their NHS-funded pills they may not be with us in 20 years or so.

Well with Matthew flouncing off at imaginary slights, and Michael continuing to arbitrarily declare the death of languages he knows little about (in the apparent hope that if he repeats himself often enough, he will become right), that would seem to be that.

Which is a shame because there is a tenable argument (usually expressed by English-language monoglots) that minority languages should go to the wall, not because they are in any way inferior or "dead", but because their continued existence impedes global communication and understanding. It's not one I go along with at all, but it's at least internally consistent and doesn't require improbable and unsupportable assertions.

Michael Williamson; I'm glad I've given you something to smile about. Don't get me wrong, I would rue the day that Welsh (along with the Gaelic languages) die out. They are a link to a Britain that did not speak English and it would be sad to see them go.
All I did was support your point that you believe Welsh to be dead. Having heard the language spoken and having read the opinions of members of the Welsh Language Society, I believe that its future is far from uncertain and thus "dead".
Thucydides and Yaffle disagree and one has to resort to the classic move of calling their opponent "chauvanistic" or "prejudiced" trying to compare me with a Russian Imperialist. Pathetic.
I am not arguing further, I have concluded my argument.
If I went back to the Ukraine topic and started talking about the city of Pripyat, these two would argue that, because its buildings still stand and there is an abundance of wildlife, plus a few tourists and police officers, it is a thriving metropolis. Despite being abandoned since 1986.

"While I quite often disagree with you I generally enjoy your pithy grumpy old man contributions. But not on this topic where you continue to write rubbish. Just to pick up a couple: "French is too rigid to progress ..." What on earth are you on about? As you well know, the reason that many French people want to get rid of le weekend and the like is because they resent the takoever by English. It's got nothing to do with the language itself being too rigid. And Welsh having no root languages? It just came into being fully-formed one day, I suppose. Now that really is intelligent design.

Matthew O'Dowd,

You have indeed concluded your argument. Your evidence for your assertion that Welsh is dead is the view of a pressure group that it is dying as a community language in many parts of Wales and the reported view of one person that it will die in 10 years unless something is done. So not dead at all, actually.".

Why do some people get so fanatical about the insignificant? If the Welsh want to speak Welsh they are quite free to do so, I just object to them pretending that it's a modern language with a place in the 21st century and then picking up a tidy sum (from the English of course) to change all their road signs. If they want to amuse themselves by speaking a dead language, that's their business, I believe some people still converse in Latin and ancient Greek and even in Esperanto (a still-born language surely) the difference being that they don't expect to receive a massive subsidy for it. I did not say that Welsh had no root languages, of course it does, I said, 'there are no root languages to refer back to', the links have long been broken, what you are left with is a language that was sufficient for everyday conversation in the 16th century but has since stagnated and is now in a gangrenous condition.

French was locked down in the 17th century which was a long-term death sentence, up until that point it had progressed quite nicely, indeed a large number of English words come from Latin via French. The French populace seemed to favour 'le weekend' as it expressed a concept that was tortuous to say in French, the powers that be, however, frowned upon it thus hammering another nail into the coffin of a language that refuses to adapt.

While I quite often disagree with you I generally enjoy your pithy grumpy old man contributions. But not on this topic where you continue to write rubbish. Just to pick up a couple: "French is too rigid to progress ..." What on earth are you on about? As you well know, the reason that many French people want to get rid of le weekend and the like is because they resent the takoever by English. It's got nothing to do with the language itself being too rigid. And Welsh having no root languages? It just came into being fully-formed one day, I suppose. Now that really is intelligent design.

Matthew O'Dowd,

You have indeed concluded your argument. Your evidence for your assertion that Welsh is dead is the view of a pressure group that it is dying as a community language in many parts of Wales and the reported view of one person that it will die in 10 years unless something is done. So not dead at all, actually.

> To Thcydides and Yaffle, are these 'names' Welsh in origin, by any chance?

Greek and English, as it happens. Given how much you've droned on about word origins, they're clearly not your strong suit.

The rest of your post was just your usual ranting saloon bar bore stuff - I can't be bothered refuting it point by point. Except to point out that, instead of having to raid their libraries for new Latinate words centuries after Latin had died out, the Welsh took their considerable stock of Latin words from the Romans directly - a good half a millennium before England, or English, existed.

No Matthew, it has nothing to do with your argument, which was that Welsh is a "dead language" and this was somehow related to its borrowing words from English. You haven't said anything at all about its prevalence until now.
But then as we've already seen, you're incapable of sticking with an argument and backing it up. Once you realise the game's up you just lurch onto a different argument.
Debating with such a person is (a) infinite, and (b) pointless.

You seem to be deliberately misunderstanding me. No one here has ever claimed that English is other than a Germanic language - a point I made in my last post.
What was at issue was your claim that "most of its words are of Germanic origin" (your words). Do you still claim that, or do you acknowledge that you got that wrong? It's a straightforward enough question.

> It has been made compulsory subject in Welsh schools. Hence the protection and promotion point. If it was healthy, it would not need this.

I believe English is compulsory in English schools - and indeed in Welsh ones too. Does that make English "unhealthy"?
How can any language be expected to survive and flourish in a modern society if it is debarred from the classroom (as Welsh once was, and as you would perhaps like to see again)?

> are you of "Big state bad, small state good" thinking? It would appear so.

Maybe to you. Is that an actual school of thought?
What I am in favour of is the self-determination of nations (which includes the right to determine the fate of their own language), underwritten by the support of other nations which share their values.
Big or small doesn't really come into it, except in that, in practice, it tends to be big nations that menace small ones, rather than the other way round.

To Thcydides and Yaffle, are these 'names' Welsh in origin, by any chance?

English, when it requires a new word, usually turns to ancient Latin or Greek, finds something appropriate and it then becomes another English word. Other languages usually have to play catchup and end up using the word unmodified, although the pronunciation may may change and the French might add an 'e' on the end and have endless discussions as to whether it should be masculine or feminine. French is too rigid to progress and when a new word like 'le weekend' is introduced, it is hunted down and driven from the language like a leper.

With Welsh there just isn't anywhere to go, there are no root languages to refer back to and it has imported so many English words, unmodified, that, in the not too distant future, a conversation in Welsh will be practically indistinguishable from English apart from the accent. If it is indeed now more widely spoke than for many years, I would suggest that is because it has become compulsory in schools, encouraged no doubt by the sort of people who carry leeks around with them and wear daffodils in their hair.

When it comes to scientific subjects, I repeat the French often have to resort to English or German as there is no way of expressing some of these ideas in French. I'd like to see a scientific report translated into Welsh though I doubt it would get far beyond the first line or two.

Thucydides, Yaffle and of course, Michael Williamson, I think this may interest you all.
The Welsh Language Society has a page of FAQs on the internet. The Society itself states, "Although the latest figures show the first increase in decades, the number of Welsh speakers mostly due to medium education and adults learning the language, they don't show the full picture. There has actually been a sharp decline in the number of Welsh speakers in its heartlands and it is dying as a community language in many parts of Wales".

It also mentions that only three per cent of Welsh children are living in households with two Welsh speaking parents. It also mentions one member who believes that the language has only decade to go before it dies unless serious action is taken to protect the language.

Not my words Yaffle, but those of the Welsh Language Society. I think this pretty much concludes my argument.

I haven't conceded my point. English is indeed a Germanic language, which it is.
It was you that was incorrect to state otherwise with your attempted rebuttal.. I haven't seen your retraction.
I don't follow conventional wisdom. As a reader of history, it is often wrong. That is why I am not optimistic about the future of Welsh as a language. Knowing a language is different to actually speaking it. It has been made compulsory subject in Welsh schools. Hence the protection and promotion point. If it was healthy, it would not need this.
Regarding conventional wisdom, I also believe that the Ukraine will disappear off the map and that its future is far from secure.
To compare Michael and I to Russian chauvanists or Arab nationalists is pathetic. Yes, I do talk of "Kiev", "Lvov" and "Kharkov". I have always called them that and always will. Hardly imperialist. However, I don't for one moment endorse people being frowned upon who choose to speak Welsh or Gaelic in public.
By the way Yaffle, are you of "Big state bad, small state good" thinking? It would appear so. It is coming across very much so.

> English can (and has) absorb just about any other foreign words and phrases that takes its fancy and subtly change them so they become uniquely English. It grew from old German with influences from Scandanavian languages, Latin and French and even some Celtic. Later it took words from Indian dialects and made them its own.

Perhaps you could point this out to your friend Matthew.
So English borrowing words = "good", Welsh borrowing words = "bad". How does that work?

> That is why it so widely spoken - it is infinitely adaptable.

Not so. It's widely spoken because it was the language of a highly successful colonising power.
(Russian chauvinists - and no doubt Arab nationalists too - make the same claim for the superiority of their languages.)

Of course it is. The "nonsense" was your claim that "most of its words are of Germanic origin" - which, you new seem to concede, was indeed wrong.

> The point is that both languages once were the same, but developed and went their own way. They developed their own words. They were flexible. Welsh is not doing this.

Neither you nor Michael has ever produced a shred of evidence for this bizarre claim - other than that Welsh users sometimes throw in a bit of English. You might as well claim that an English person who uses the odd "je-ne-sais-quoi" or "joie de vivre" is demonstrating the paucity of English.

> I just don't accept (as you appear to) that the development of English can be compared to the current state of Welsh.

When did I "appear to" do that? The development of the two couldn't be more different.

> Cornish (which was closely related) died out dueto similar problems. If a langauge needs protecting, promoting or awareness, it suggests it is in deep trouble. Welsh, sadly is in that catergory.

Cornish didn't die out due to "problems" it died out because its speakers fell under the yoke of a larger power - the English. Welsh has - just - avoided that fate; in fact the numbers "able to speak Welsh" rose 2% between 1991 and 2001 - for under-24s, the rise was around 10%.

> I am not on an anti Welsh trip. As a "conservative", I would be very sad to see the Celtic languages die out. A major piece of Briatin's heritage would die.

Elena, you are right that some people in Sevastopol may agree with some of your views, that means nothing. Lookup the word 'confirmation bias' and work on your critical thinking skills please, mind you, it's your life.

Peter if you are reading this, your article was factually correct for the most part, but the extrapolations you allowed people to draw from it, just as reckless as some of the poison your brother stews at times.

Yaffle, I'm afraid to say that English is indeed a Germanic language, along with Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish,Icelandic, Danish and of course, German. Yes there is influence from French, Latin, Greek, etc., but the grammatical rules of English are Germanic, not Romance. I would look at your beloved Wikipedia as I'm sure it will corroborate my point.
I'm afraid to say the Dutch point is not irrelevant. The point is that both languages once were the same, but developed and went their own way. They developed their own words. They were flexible. Welsh is not doing this.

For your information Yaffle, I live in the Liverpool area, ie, not too far away from Wales. I can see Wales from my house and what a beautiful place it is.However, as a result, I have heard numerous languages spoken on the streets, including Russian, French, Urdu, Mandarin, Polish, Greek and of course Welsh (both in Liverpool and Wales). I can say that Welsh is the only language where you can hear very heavy use of borrowed words. That is to say, Yaffle, completely unaltered English ones in order to complete a sentence or conduct conversation. So much so, it has even been sadly mocked by comedians on TV making cheap jokes. Sad but true.
I am not on an anti Welsh trip. As a "conservative", I would be very sad to see the Celtic languages die out. A major piece of Briatin's heritage would die.
But, I just don't accept (as you appear to) that the development of English can be compared to the current state of Welsh. Cornish (which was closely related) died out dueto similar problems. If a langauge needs protecting, promoting or awareness, it suggests it is in deep trouble. Welsh, sadly is in that catergory.

As for my surname, yes it is of Gaelic origin (Ui Dubhda). However,my surname is heavily Anglicised and pronounced completely different in English. Thus, I would argue I am not keeping it alive in its Celtic sense.

> "But, when it comes to dealing more modern concepts, [Welsh] is hopeless it just isn't possible to develop new words in a meaningful way. Another heresy, the same is true of French, most technical papers are written in English or German because it nigh on impossible to express new ideas in French."

More bosh. Where do think words like "telephone" and "computer" came from - were they brought over by the Anglo-Saxons?
As for it being "nigh on impossible to express new ideas in French", the number of sentences in any language - and so the concepts they can convey - is infinite.
Name one Frenchman who claims the conceptual poverty of his own language has obliged to him to write in English (or, indeed, German).

You pair clearly just don't like minority languages - fine, but don't try to dress up your prejudices with piffle about them being dead, impoverished etc.

"The Welsh language now depends on using words from other languages, most notably English. Hence, the term dead language."

Er, Matthew, around two-thirds of the words in the language you write in are borrowed from other languages - including half-a-dozen in that one sentence of yours above.".

Well Yaffle, or should that be waffle? English can (and has) absorb just about any other foreign words and phrases that takes its fancy and subtly change them so they become uniquely English. It grew from old German with influences from Scandanavian languages, Latin and French and even some Celtic. Later it took words from Indian dialects and made them its own. That is why it so widely spoken - it is infinitely adaptable. The same cannot be said of Welsh, it's stuck and can go no further.

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